20. jenga

Everything crashed down this morning. 

You know the game Jenga? The one where you take turns gently poking the structural integrity of a tower of wooden blocks, removing them from the supportive base area and stacking them higher and higher into a progressively less stable order?

Ok, imagine that. 

Now think about when you’re playing so long that the crash is inevitable - the moment where everyone can see it gently swaying, but you keep playing anyway - because that’s the game.  

Today was a Jenga day.

Maybe I should have known it was coming, as Mars retrograde (or that little fucker, as I’m starting to think of him) at the critical 0º of Leo is currently making a tense square to my natal Mercury - and my partner’s natal Jupiter in Scorpio. 

It’s the early luteal phase of my cycle, when my hormonal roller coaster crashes from the ovulatory peak and descends, careening, towards my inner depths. 

The moon is in Pisces, hanging out with usually-no-fun Saturn, who is just shy of making an opposition with my natal Mars. 

As a family, we've been dealing with high level of stress over a period of nearly a month, with illness, injury, kids on winter break, holidays, and little to no time for solitude, self-care, or deep rest.

In other words, my current personal-meets-cosmic recipe is one of messy fire meets water... and I’m not naturally much of a fire being, so when my anger or passion gets activated, it tends to come out in watery, emotional, and not-entirely-level-headed expressions. 

I lost my shit this morning is what I’m trying to say, and honestly, on looking back, it’s not for any particular reason. But I think of what’s been stacking in my tower the last few weeks - or is it months - and maybe it makes sense. 

One of the most destructive parts of my particular flavor of neurodivergence is an intense rejection sensitivity that pretty much only shows up in my romantic partnership. We could psychoanalyze it and decide that it’s related to my dad cheating on my mom and leaving our family when I was 14 (which formed a nasty abandonment would), but regardless of the origin, it occasionally rears its head and convinces me, in a most unpleasant way, of a few key (false) beliefs. I know they are false beliefs, but in the jenga moment, they jangle and juggle my logical mind and present a most compelling case that the following things are true: 

• No one appreciates or understands me

• It doesn’t matter how much I do, it’s never enough for them

• When I’m too emotional, I’m unlovable 

• If I keep being unlovable, they are going to leave me

In addition to being annoying as fuck, these well worn thought-grooves, these old, familiar, no-longer-useful ruts in my mind cause grief and harm for everyone around me. 

Here’s how my RSD works: 

1. I perceive something I’ve done has caused displeasure in my partner. 

2. I feel an overwhelming sense of threat because I want them to always be happy with me. 

3. The threat hijacks my nervous system and comes out in defensiveness. 

4. Defensiveness is perceived or received as aggressiveness and anger. 

5. Partner pulls back in response to what is perceived as anger. 

6. I experience feelings of rejection and a sense of instability and unsafety. 

7. Perception of rejection activates intense shame spiral and fight / flight / freeze response.

8. Mutual effort is made towards resolution, but my body holds on tight to the shame.

9. It fucking sucks for anywhere from 2 hours (good) to a whole day (not so good).

10. Perspective, compassion, and emotional balance eventually return. 

What a boring and technical way to describe it, but honestly, that feels kind of helpful. Because the lived experience of it is just a totalizing sense of emotional threat that grows bigger until it tries to swallow me whole and leave me wiped out on the floor. 

For my own sake, here are some things that are also true: 

1. Sometimes I will do things that displease other people. 

2. Sometimes I will believe I have displeased someone, but it’s not true. 

3. Sometimes people are displeased, and it’s not about me. 

4. This intense abandonment wound exists because of my past AND -

5. This intense abandonment wound is not the truth of what’s here now

6. I am loved and cared for by my family AND - 

7. My family will not always understand me.

8. Honestly, I don’t always understand me. 

9. Even when we don’t understand each other, we love each other AND -

10. We’re not going to leave each other.

Ok, I feel better. Thanks for the counseling session. That’s our time for today, Self. 

Ok, see you tomorrow, Self. 

Love, 

Self

P.S. Gentle reader, if you also struggle with rejection sensitive dysphoria, and sometimes feel like you’re going to die because you had a huge emotional response and then a shame spiral, I see you, it sucks, you’re not alone, and you’re totally deeply worthy of love and validation. It’s okay to also need those sometimes from other people, but also remember that you are the ultimate source of your own emotional well-being. Be kind to yourself.